Sunday, April 28, 2013

Love One Another

5th Sunday
of Easter

Jan VanEyck: Arnolfini Wedding

In today's first reading we
continue to follow Paul and Barnabas on their missionary journey. Last week we
saw that after meeting opposition in the Jewish community in Antioch, a seaport
in what is now Turkey, they decided to take their message to the Gentiles or
non-Jews. In fact Paul now realizes that the mission of the Jews has always
been to bring the God of Israel to the Gentiles.

It's hard for us to
understand the need for this missionary activity. We do not realizehow much fear ruled the world in which
Paul and Barnabas traveled. When we read of Greek and Roman philosophers and
poets, we fail to realize that they were few and far between. For the most part
the Gentiles were consumed by fear of the gods. Here's a few examples.

In the ancient world families
had to produce heirs to carry on the worship of the ancestral gods.
Superstition led people to attribute any bad luck to a failure to properly
carry out the rites and sacrifices for the dead family gods. Women, therefore, were
little more than child bearing machines. If they couldn't bear children, Roman
law required that their husbands divorce them. In most cases the very idea of
love between husband and wife was unimaginable. Girls as young as 12 were given
in marriage to men much older. If a woman bore a daughter, her husband could
order her to kill the infant girl and try again. Infanticide was a common
practice among the Romans.

Sacrifices were continually
offered to idols in order to appease the gods. These were not harmless
practices. Plague, famine, every stroke of bad luck was caused by some god who
had been angered by failure to follow the proper rituals. I recently read a
letter from a young missionary nurse in Thailand who reported how fear of the
gods could ruin the life of an entire family. Even today when a child becomes
ill a poor family will not seek medical help but will offer up a chicken to the
gods. When the child's condition worsens, they then offer their cow only to
find that doesn't work either. The child dies anyway but now the family faces
financial ruin and starvation.

Of course, we know of other
civilizations where human sacrifice was the accepted way to appease the gods.
In today's gospel reading we have something new. The scene is at the Last Supper
where Jesus predicts his own sacrifice for us. He says to the Apostles,

I
give you a new commandment: love one another.

As
I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

This
is how all will know that you are my disciples,

if
you have love for one another.

This command to the Apostles
will have a profound influence in the ancient world. The Christians like their
Jewish brethren cannot practice abortion or infanticide. They must welcome
their children and love them, even their daughters. In fact, many of the
conversions in the early Church occurred because pagan men could not find pagan
wives. They married Christian girls who brought their husbands to the faith as
so many still do today.

In a well-known passage St.
Paul tells husbands to love their wives. We don't realize after 2000 years of
Christianity how shocking or abnormal this must have appeared in the ancient
world. After all, what does love mean? Jesus gave us plenty of examples. At the
Last Supper He stooped to wash the feet of his disciples. No self respecting
Gentile would ever consider serving his wife in this manner. The next day He
gave his life on the Cross as an example to us. From that day on every
Christian man and woman had the responsibility to lay down his or her life for
each other.

We are going to see over the
next few weeks that this love was intended to extend beyond our own family,
village, tribe, and nation. In today's gospel Jesus did not ask us to love Him,
He commanded us to love one another. It's sad to think how little progress
we've made in the last 2000 years. All the fears and horrors that Paul and
Barnabas found in the ancient world still exist today. We only have to pick up
today's newspaper to see the evidence.

Today's second reading is
from the Book of Revelation. St. John had a vision, a dream of "a new
heaven and a new earth." God, he says, will be with his people.

He
will wipe every tear from their eyes,

and
there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain,

for
the old order has passed away.

Today, more than ever it
seems like just a dream. But what can we do? How does it help to give up on
faith, hope, or charity? We have our command, our marching orders. There is
nothing stopping us from embarking on our own missionary journey. Maybe we
don't have the gift of preaching but we can give a good example to our
neighbors. "Paul and Barnabas opened the door of faith to the
Gentiles." We can open the door so that Love can walk right in.

This
is how all will know that you are my disciples,

if
you have love for one another.

Years ago George and Ira Gershwin wrote a beautiful romantic ballad whose words could easily fit today's readings. Here is a link to the Hilltoppers' version, or just click below.